Medusa of the Roses

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4.9/5.0
21,000+ Reviews
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Product Details
Price
$27.00  $25.11
Publisher
Grove Press
Publish Date
Pages
240
Dimensions
5.6 X 8.4 X 1.2 inches | 0.75 pounds
Language
English
Type
Hardcover
EAN/UPC
9780802163035
BISAC Categories:

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About the Author
Navid Sinaki is an artist and writer from Tehran who currently lives in Los Angeles. His works have been exhibited at museums and art houses around the world, including the Lincoln Center, British Film Institute, Cineteca Nacional in Mexico, and the Modern Museum in Stockholm. His first solo art exhibition The Infinite Garden debuted at Shangri La Museum of Islamic Art, Culture, and Design, and the Honolulu Museum of Art.
Reviews

Praise for Medusa of the Roses

A Publishers Weekly Writer to Watch

"Video artist Sinaki's stunning debut follows two gay lovers struggling to survive in modern-day Tehran. In alternately gritty and sensual prose, Sinaki perfectly captures Anjir's morbid state of mind and his inability to separate love from pain. The narrative teems with references to Greek mythology, Persian folktales, and Old Hollywood as Sinaki considers the psychological toll that living under an ever-present threat of death can take. This is a must."--Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

"Sinaki's prose is dense with sensory detail and mythological allusions . . . [a] memorable descent into love and betrayal in queer Tehran."--Kirkus Reviews

"It's a gritty tale woven in with ancient Persian and Greek myths, fused into a debut novel so good you'll skip all your summer days' plans."--Fleurine Tideman, Betches

"Navid Sinaki's writing is really, really something. Reading Medusa of the Roses not only pleasures through its chaseable story and meticulously tuned characters, it offers the non-stop bedazzlement of some of the most intoxicating and yet exacting prose I've read in ages. It's a rush of a novel, and honestly kind of perfect."--Dennis Cooper, author of I Wished

"Very rarely does a book come along that you feel might save lives, including your own. In giving voice to the ultimate voiceless in Iran, Sinaki has written a witty and wild tale truly for the best of our beloved angels and devils. He has taken our shared cultures and done something none of us Iranian writers have managed: he gets to the heart of the damaged and damaging politics of our homeland by turning despair into art that's so invigorating and thrilling, we quite nearly have a new genre. Medusa of the Roses is the most dynamic literary debut, certainly of the Iranian queer canon, I have ever read!"--Porochista Khakpour, author Sons and Other Flammable Objects and Tehrangeles

"Navid Sinaki flips noir on its head in this propulsive, twisting novel about creating identity against formative love in an oppressive society. Sexy, raw, and perfectly paced, Medusa of the Roses will get under your skin."--Julia Fine, author of Maddalena and the Dark

"Medusa of the Roses is a beautiful, fast-paced melodrama, a campy, queer reimagining of mid-century noir set in Iran, bloody and poetic in equal measure."--Kyle Dillon Hertz, author of The Lookback Window

"Feverish and atmospheric, Sinaki's writing captures with great precision the visceral torment of love and all the havoc it wreaks. Anjir is a brooding, rueful narrator-cum-protagonist whose haunting, and at times knowingly camp, plight bursts forth from the page with cinematic bite."--Andrés N. Ordorica, author of How We Named the Stars

"Medusa of the Roses is a violently beautiful story of poignant queer love and loss in Iran which never stops being charming and surprising. This thrilling novel manages to be both nightmarish and dreamlike in its devoted search for romantic love and gender fluidity. Sinaki also does a brilliant job of interweaving Greek and Persian mythologies throughout the modern myth he's created - the myth of Zal and Anjir."--Golnoosh Noor, author of The Ministry of Guidance